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Leviticus 26

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1“‘You shall make for yourselves no idols, and you shall not raise up an engraved image or a pillar, and you shall not place any figured stone in your land, to bow down to it; for I am Yahweh your God.

2“‘You shall keep my Sabbaths, and have reverence for my sanctuary. I am Yahweh.

3“‘If you walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them;

4then I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit.

5Your threshing shall reach to the vintage, and the vintage shall reach to the sowing time. You shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely.

6“‘I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and no one will make you afraid. I will remove evil animals out of the land, neither shall the sword go through your land.

7You shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword.

8Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall chase ten thousand; and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword.

9“‘I will have respect for you, and make you fruitful, and multiply you, and will establish my covenant with you.

10You shall eat old store long kept, and you shall move out the old because of the new.

11I will set my tent among you, and my soul won’t abhor you.

12I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you will be my people.

13I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that you should not be their slaves. I have broken the bars of your yoke, and made you go upright.

14“‘But if you will not listen to me, and will not do all these commandments;

15and if you shall reject my statutes, and if your soul abhors my ordinances, so that you will not do all my commandments, but break my covenant;

16I also will do this to you: I will appoint terror over you, even consumption and fever, that shall consume the eyes, and make the soul to pine away. You will sow your seed in vain, for your enemies will eat it.

17I will set my face against you, and you will be struck before your enemies. Those who hate you will rule over you; and you will flee when no one pursues you.

18“‘If you in spite of these things will not listen to me, then I will chastise you seven times more for your sins.

19I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your sky like iron, and your soil like brass.

20Your strength will be spent in vain; for your land won’t yield its increase, neither will the trees of the land yield their fruit.

21“‘If you walk contrary to me, and won’t listen to me, then I will bring seven times more plagues on you according to your sins.

22I will send the wild animals among you, which will rob you of your children, destroy your livestock, and make you few in number. Your roads will become desolate.

23“‘If by these things you won’t be reformed to me, but will walk contrary to me;

24then I will also walk contrary to you; and I will strike you, even I, seven times for your sins.

25I will bring a sword upon you that will execute the vengeance of the covenant. You will be gathered together within your cities, and I will send the pestilence among you. You will be delivered into the hand of the enemy.

26When I break your staff of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver your bread again by weight. You shall eat, and not be satisfied.

27“‘If you in spite of this won’t listen to me, but walk contrary to me;

28then I will walk contrary to you in wrath. I will also chastise you seven times for your sins.

29You will eat the flesh of your sons, and you will eat the flesh of your daughters.

30I will destroy your high places, and cut down your incense altars, and cast your dead bodies upon the bodies of your idols; and my soul will abhor you.

31I will lay your cities waste, and will bring your sanctuaries to desolation. I will not take delight in the sweet fragrance of your offerings.

32I will bring the land into desolation; and your enemies that dwell therein will be astonished at it.

33I will scatter you among the nations, and I will draw out the sword after you. Your land will be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste.

34Then the land will enjoy its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate and you are in your enemies’ land. Even then the land will rest and enjoy its Sabbaths.

35As long as it lies desolate it shall have rest, even the rest which it didn’t have in your Sabbaths, when you lived on it.

36“‘As for those of you who are left, I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. The sound of a driven leaf will put them to flight; and they shall flee, as one flees from the sword. They will fall when no one pursues.

37They will stumble over one another, as it were before the sword, when no one pursues. You will have no power to stand before your enemies.

38You will perish among the nations. The land of your enemies will eat you up.

39Those of you who are left will pine away in their iniquity in your enemies’ lands; and also in the iniquities of their fathers they shall pine away with them.

40“‘If they confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, in their trespass which they trespassed against me, and also that, because they walked contrary to me,

41I also walked contrary to them, and brought them into the land of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled, and they then accept the punishment of their iniquity;

42then I will remember my covenant with Jacob; and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham; and I will remember the land.

43The land also will be left by them, and will enjoy its Sabbaths while it lies desolate without them: and they will accept the punishment of their iniquity; because, even because they rejected my ordinances, and their soul abhorred my statutes.

44Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them; for I am Yahweh their God;

45but I will for their sake remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God. I am Yahweh.’”

46These are the statutes, ordinances and laws, which Yahweh made between him and the children of Israel in Mount Sinai by Moses.

Commentary

CHAPTER 26Le 26:1, 2. Of Idolatry.1. Ye shall make you no idols—Idolatry had been previously forbidden (Ex 20:4, 5), but the law was repeated here with reference to some particular forms of it that were very prevalent among the neighboring nations.a standing image—that is, "upright pillar."image of stone—that is, an obelisk, inscribed with hieroglyphical and superstitious characters; the former denoting the common and smaller pillars of the Syrians or Canaanites; the latter, pointing to the large and elaborate obelisks which the Egyptians worshipped as guardian divinities, or used as stones of adoration to stimulate religious worship. The Israelites were enjoined to beware of them.

26:1-13 This chapter contains a general enforcement of all the laws given by Moses; by promises of reward in case of obedience, on the one hand; and threatenings of punishment for disobedience, on the other. While Israel maintained a national regard to God's worship, sabbaths, and sanctuary, and did not turn aside to idolatry, the Lord engaged to continue to them temporal mercies and religious advantages. These great and precious promises, though they relate chiefly to the life which now is, were typical of the spiritual blessings made sure by the covenant of grace to all believers, through Christ. 1. Plenty and abundance of the fruits of the earth. Every good and perfect gift must be expected from above, from the Father of lights. 2. Peace under the Divine protection. Those dwell in safety, that dwell in God. 3. Victory and success in their wars. It is all one with the Lord to save by many or by few. 4. The increase of their people. The gospel church shall be fruitful. 5. The favour of God, which is the fountain of all Good. 6. Tokens of his presence in and by his ordinances. The way to have God's ordinances fixed among us, is to cleave closely to them. 7. The grace of the covenant. All covenant blessings are summed up in the covenant relation, I will be your God, and ye shall be my people; and they are all grounded upon their redemption. Having purchased them, God would own them, and never cast them off till they cast him off.

Chapter 26 This chapter is a solemn conclusion of the main body of the levitical law. The precepts that follow in this and the following book either relate to some particular matters or are repetitions and explications of the foregoing institutions. Now this chapter contains a general enforcement of all those laws by promises of reward in case of obedience on the one hand, and threatenings of punishment for disobedience on the other hand, the former to work upon hope, the latter on fear, those two handles of the soul, by which it is taken hold of and managed. Here is, I. A repetition of two or three of the principal of the commandments (v. 1, 2). II. An inviting promise of all good things, if they would but keep God’s commandments (v. 3–13). III. A terrible threatening of ruining judgments which would be brought upon them if they were refractory and disobedient (v. 14–39). IV. A gracious promise of the return of mercy to those of them that would repent and reform (v. 40, etc.). Deu. 28 is parallel to this.Verses 1-13 Here is, I. The inculcating of those precepts of the law which were of the greatest consequence, and by which were of the greatest consequence, and by which especially their obedience would be tried, v. 1, 2. They are the abstract of the second and fourth commandments, which, as they are by much the largest in the decalogue, so they are most frequently insisted on in other parts of the law. As, when a master has given many things in charge to his servant, he concludes with the repetition of those things which were of the greatest importance, and which the servant was most in danger of neglecting, bidding him, whatever he did, be sure to remember those, so here God by Moses, after many precepts, closes all with a special charge to observe these two great commandments. 1. "Be sure you never worship images, nor ever make any sort of images or pictures for a religious use," v. 1. No sin was more provoking to God than this, and yet there was none that they were more addicted to, and which afterwards proved of more pernicious consequence to them. Next to God’s being, unity, and universal influence, it is necessary that we know and believe that he is an infinite Spirit; and therefore to represent him by an image in the making of it, to confine him to an image in the consecrating of it, and to worship him by an image in bowing down to it, changes his truth into a lie and his glory into shame, as much as any thing. 2. "Be sure you keep up a great veneration for sabbaths and religious assemblies," v. 2. As nothing tends more to corrupt religion than the use of images in devotion, so nothing contributes more to the support of it than keeping the sabbaths and reverencing the sanctuary. These make up very much of the instrumental part of religion, by which the essentials of it are kept up. Therefore we find in the prophets that, next to the sin of idolatry, there is no sin for which the Jews are more frequently reproved and threatened than the profanation of the sabbath day.II. Great encouragements given them to live in constant obedience to all God’s commandments, largely and strongly assuring them that if they did so they should be a happy people, and should be blessed with all the good things they could desire. Human governments enforce their laws with penalties to be inflicted for the breach of them; but God will be known as the rewarder of those that seek and serve him. Let us take a view of these great and precious promises, which, though they relate chiefly to the life which now is, and to the public national concerns of that people, were typical of the spiritual blessings entailed by the covenant of grace upon all believers through Christ. 1. Plenty and abundance of the fruits of the earth.

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Translations8 · 5

AMHEVG “ ‘እኔ እግዚአብሔር አምላካችሁ ነኝና ለእናንተ ጣዖት አታድርጉ፥ የተቀረጸም ምስል ወይም ሐውልት አታቁሙ፤ ትሰግዱለትም ዘንድ በምድራችሁ ላይ የተቀረጸ ድንጋይ አታኑሩ። አማርኛ ENGNIV “ ‘Do not make idols or set up an image or a sacred stone for yourselves, and do not place a carved stone in your land … English BCV ነኣኻትኩም ጣዖታት ኣይትግበሩ፤ ምስሊ፥ ወይ ሓወልቲ ኣይተቑሙ፤ ክትሰግዱሉ ኢልኩም ድማ ዝተወቕረ እምኒ ኣብ ምድሪኹም ኣይትግበሩ፤ ኣምላኽኩም ኣነ እግዚኣብሄር እየ። ትግርኛ GAZBIB Waaqayyo itti fufee,“Ani Waaqayyo gooftaa keessan waanan ta'eef, isin waaqayyolii tolfamoo hin hojjetatinaa, bifa qirix… Afaan Oromoo BCV GIZ ወኢትግበሩ ለክሙ ግብረ እደ ሰብእ ወኢግልፎ ወኢታቅሙ ለክሙ ሐውልተ እብን በውስተ ምድርክሙ ከመ ትስግዱ ላቲ እስመ አነ እግዚአብሔር አምላክክሙ። giz GAZGAZ Waaqayyo itti fufee,“Ani Waaqayyo gooftaa keessan waanan ta'eef, isin waaqayyolii tolfamoo hin hojjetatinaa, bifa qirix… Afaan Oromoo BCV aksum ነኣኻትኩም ጣዖታት ኣይትግበሩ፤ ምስሊ፥ ወይ ሓወልቲ ኣይተቑሙ፤ ክትሰግዱሉ ኢልኩም ድማ ዝተወቕረ እምኒ ኣብ ምድሪኹም ኣይትግበሩ፤ ኣምላኽኩም ኣነ እግዚኣብሄር እየ። ትግርኛ AMHNIV “ ‘ትሰግዱላቸው ዘንድ ጣዖታትን አታብጁ፤ ምስል ወይም የማምለኪያ ዐምድ አታቁሙ፤ በምድራችሁም ላይ የተቀረጸ ድንጋይ አታኑሩ፤ እኔ እግዚአብሔር አምላካችሁ (ያህዌ ኤሎሂም) ነኝ። አማርኛ